Saturday, October 15, 2016

A Little Haunting: A #Halloween Ghost Story

Jon and
Tania are traveling with the ghost hunter TV show again, this time to the
Superstition Mountains of Arizona, where the ghost of an old miner is still
looking for his lost mine. The siblings want to help him move on—but to help
him resolve the problem keeping him here, they’ll have to find the mine. And
even then, the old ghost may be having too much fun to leave! It’s a good thing
Tania can see and talk to him, because the kids will need his help to survive
the rigors of a mule train through the desert, a flash flood, and a suspicious
treasure hunter who wants the gold mine for himself.A Little Haunting: A #Halloween Ghost StorySome people swore that the house
was haunted. Yeah, right.

“Let’s look around,” my sister said, pulling on my arm. “Mom
and Dad will be busy for a while.”

“Whatever.” None of my friends were there to see me, so I
followed her up creaking stairs and through musty rooms hung with cobwebs. I
thought about sneaking away and hiding somewhere, to give her a scare.

Tania paused at an open doorway.
I started to sneak past, down the hall.

She gasped. I looked back. She swayed in the doorway, eyes
wide and face white. “What?” I asked.

“The ghost!” she hissed.

My stomach gave a flip. I pushed next to her and looked into
the room. Nothing but dust floating in the light from grimy windows. Just for a
second, she’d gotten me. But I couldn’t let her know that. I rolled my eyes. “Nice
try.”

She kept staring ahead. “Don’t
you see it?”

I snorted. “You can give it up
now.”

“He’s right there!” She stepped into the room, slowly. She
moved in a half circle, like she was skirting something. She reached out a hand
to the empty space in the middle of the room. It was creepy. Does that sound
stupid? Well, you weren’t there.

“Hello,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?” Her hand passed
into a beam of light, looking dead white and almost translucent. She gasped and
jerked back, like she’d touched something painful.

“Cut it out,” I said. “It’s not
funny.”

She cringed back. Her hands clutched at her throat. “No!”
She was half bent over backward. She should have fallen, but it looked like
someone was holding her up.

I stood frozen in the doorway. My legs felt like water, but
I couldn’t let her see that she was getting to me.

She thrashed, still scratching at her throat, and made a
gurgling noise. Could something really be wrong?

She was my little sister. It was
my job to protect her. I rushed forward. I reached out for her.

I slammed through a wall of cold. I struggled for balance as
the room tilted crazily around me. Tania’s face swam in my vision, an arm’s
length away.

Strange feelings swarmed around me, spewed up inside me.
Anger. Hatred. Blood pounded in my head and I saw Tania’s terrified eyes through
a haze of red. My hands were around her neck. Squeezing.

I couldn’t stop. Some part of me tried to pull back, but my
rage was too great. I had to keep squeezing until those hated brown eyes closed
and the body fell limp to the floor.

Her lips moved. No sound came out, but I could see her form
a name. “Jon.” My name. Blue eyes bulged in her face. Tania’s eyes, pleading.

She was my little sister. It was my job to protect her. I fought
back the rage. I struggled to control my hands. I forced them open, forced my
arms to drop. The feelings welled up, battering me. But I was not him. I made
my own choices. Her death would not be one of them.

The emotion faded. Tania slumped and I caught her. We stood
trembling in an empty room. She gasped for breath, her face pressed to my
chest. “What was that? What happened?” She looked up at me.

She was my little sister. It was
my job to protect her. I grinned. “Gotcha!”

Her eyes narrowed. She punched
my arm. “You jerk!” She stormed away.

I had protected her this time,
but .... Nothing was ever the same again after that.

Chris Eboch’s Haunted series stars Jon and Tania
as kids who travel with a ghost hunter TV show. This story was
written based on a writing prompt for the opening sentence (and is creepier
than most of the books, which are fun action stories). Chris's other novels for
ages nine and up include The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient
Egypt; and The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure. Read samples
at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page.